A Little Girl Lost

I love fresh onions. Have since I was a little girl. I eat them with everything or by themselves as a snack. I may eat them with buttered saltines because I also love salt. When I connected with my cousin, Curtis, on Facebook a couple of years ago, he said, “I remember you. You’re the one who eats onions like apples!” Yep. I’d just had onions with my lunch!

I must admit that I’ve chomped down on a few hot but tolerable onions. Most recently, Earl bought a bag of yellow onions. (I cook with yellow onions and prefer to eat sweet white onions.)

Well, he peeled one, cut off a slice, quartered it and gave me a few crackers. I bit into the first large, cool, crisp mouthful—Wow! I swallowed quickly, grabbed a cracker and began chewing and spreading the masticated mush around in my mouth to absorb the onion’s oil.

Whew! I survived, but it seems I’m an idiot. I ate the rest of the slice—and several more crackers! I couldn’t throw it away.

Later, I tried to eat some of Earl’s homemade potato soup, and it burned my tongue. The soup had cooled so I asked, “What spice did you put in this to make hot?”

“Nothing. It’s not hot to me,” he said.

Well, I couldn’t eat it. I couldn’t even taste it. A few hours passed and I ate some “Chicken in a Biscuit” crackers and they burned my tongue. “Earl, would you look at my tongue? Is it red?”

“It is around the edges. What’s wrong?” he asked.

“That onion burned it!” I said.

It took two days to heal and taste food, but I still had the rest of that onion. I couldn’t waste it so I talked a friend into taking it—to cook with!

I’ve read articles that say when we crave a food it means our body needs the nutrients in that food. Also, did you know onions are a natural antihistamine as well as being antibacterial? During the Bubonic Plague they called, “The Black Death,” people who left fresh onions around their homes had a higher survival rate. The onions – they turned black.

In 1919, the flu killed thousands. Physicians microscopically observed flu virus in onions set in a healthy farmer’s home.

My conclusion: We should all eat more onion so I don’t reek alone.

“At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. The guard gave them vegetables instead.To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better.” (Daniel 1:15-17, 20 NIV).